TORONTO 鈥� Canadian musician Steven Page grew up Jewish with Christian relatives on his father鈥檚 side, so when the holidays rolled around, they鈥檇 celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas 鈥� a.k.a. Chrismukkah.
鈥淲e never had a tree. That was like a dividing line in our family,鈥� the former Barenaked Ladies frontman said in a recent phone interview from his home in Upstate New York.
鈥淭here was never a tree, but there were still stockings. We didn鈥檛 do the Chinese restaurant thing that a lot of other Jewish families do, because we always had somewhere to go for Christmas dinner.鈥�
Page also recalls singing Christmas carols in choirs in elementary school.
鈥淲hen you can go: 鈥極h, that song was written by a Jewish guy,鈥� it was always kind of a point of pride for us,鈥� said the singer, who is set to resume a tour in the new year and is working on a new album.
鈥淭hen you realize that so many of these great American standards, holiday or otherwise, were written by Jewish composers.鈥�
The new film Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas, debuting tonight on Documentary Channel, looks at how Jewish songwriters came to pen such Christmas standards as Have a Holly Jolly Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and White Christmas.
The film, which also airs Dec. 7 on CBC, is centred around a Jewish family gathering in a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day 鈥� a tradition for many Jewish families.
Page is among the Canadian performers who drop in to the restaurant to give their own renditions of holiday standards. Experts including a musicologist, a priest and a rabbi explain the history of Jewish involvement in Christmas.
The Chinese restaurant in the film is Sea-Hi, said Oscar-nominated Toronto filmmaker Larry Weinstein, who directed the documentary. It鈥檚 where his Jewish family went on Christmas Day when he was growing up in Toronto. Like Page, Weinstein鈥檚 family also had Christmas stockings and he admits he believed in Santa Claus until he was about 11.
In many ways, the Jewish songwriters of the 1920s through the 1950s were perfect for penning yuletide tunes because they understood the holiday family sentiment and the Christmas story of being an outsider, Weinstein said.
鈥淎nd an outsider who maybe idealizes what Christmas is all about,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 know about families being together and arguing or having a fight to the death over a wishbone.
鈥淭hey see it as this very beautiful family time, and family meant so much to these people, especially the ones who had emigrated or their parents had been 茅migr茅s 鈥� Then of course very few of the songs do refer to the religious aspect.鈥�
As the film explains, many Jewish composers wrote Christmas classics during or after the Second World War in New York, at a time when there were few opportunities for immigrants but songwriting was open to all. They wrote the tunes in a secular way that included everyone in the holiday.
